


Love Is...

by Chellacat



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Marriage, Romantic Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 14:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17603276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chellacat/pseuds/Chellacat
Summary: Love is patient, Love is kind...All the ways Darcy and Bucky embody the famous quote.orI was feeling really sappy and ended up with this unbelievably romantic drivel.





	Love Is...

**Love is Patient, Love is Kind.**

 

It doesn’t take Darcy long to figure out that she’s falling for him fast.  He’s like no man she has ever met before.   It’s not the rocking body or the fact that he has the prettiest eyes she’s ever seen, its him, every part of him that you can’t see.  

When he first arrives, he keeps to himself, leaves a room when too many people show up and generally shies away from any group gatherings.  Little by little she sees the change, that he’s trying to fit in, become a part of the crazy family of misfits that live in the Tower.

She knows he watches her.  She can feel his eyes on her when she enters a room.  There’s a look on his face, a wistfulness that sparks something inside her.  She smiles at him, makes a point of greeting him, but still he keeps his distance from her.  Darcy spends far too much time wondering what’s going on in his head.

With a little digging and asking around she figures out his favourite foods and makes a point of including them in the menu each week.  She makes him blueberry muffins and doubles the baklava recipe when she finds out his weakness for the dessert.  Natasha smiles secretively and arches her perfect eyebrows each time Darcy leaves her offerings in the briefing room where she knows Bucky is always the first to arrive.

Slowly he relaxes into life in the Tower but still Darcy feels the distance between them.  She’ll admit that it stings just a little, because she can’t stop herself from watching him.  He’s so different to anyone she’s ever known before.  It’s his kindness that is slowly wearing away a place in her heart.

He notices things that other people don’t and then he acts on it, helping them.  Bringing Jean in accounting flowers when he sees she’s stopped wearing her wedding ring.  Giving Tom down in security paid leave to go stay with his kid while he’s in hospital.  Making sure Doreen down in acquisitions had a security escort home every night for three months after she’s mugged on the subway.  He sees and he helps, he doesn’t expect anything back, he just knows how it feels to be alone and in pain. 

She watches him from the corner of her eye whenever they are in the same room, she doesn’t know why no one else has noticed that he holds back from them, that he keeps distance at all times from the rest of the team, that consciously or unconsciously they all let him, happy at the distance.  It’s not because he doesn’t want contact, because from everything she’s seen so far it’s the thing he craves the most. 

Darcy decides that she’s waited long enough, if Mohammad won’t come to the mountain then the mountain is just going to have to go to him.  She plops herself down in the tiny space between the arm rest of the couch and his body at the next movie night and snuggles into his side, throwing one leg over his in the darkened room.  After a long five minutes of preternatural stillness, his arm finally comes to rest around her back and Darcy sighs happily, cuddling her arm around his middle.  She feels his body relax under her and she smiles. 

She finds excuses after that to lean against him, touch him, brushes past him in hallways with a cheerful smile and gentle squeeze to his arm in greeting.  Slowly he starts to relax unconsciously whenever he sees her, he smiles more and when he does Darcy can hardly breath for the reflection of the happiness when it reaches his eyes. 

It takes a month before he begins to seek her out.  He’ll join her in the kitchen and watch her bake, offer to help make dinner, it’s all very domestic and she chatters away about her day, her family, Jane.  Anything really, just to fill the silence she knows he hates.  When he talks, she listens intently and she waits. 

Darcy knows this is going somewhere, she just has to be patient.  She’s sitting in the common room watching a movie one afternoon when he joins her.  He brings her a coffee and a blanket and sits close beside her.  When he lifts his arm in invitation Darcy grins at him and without hesitation curls into his side as he arranges the blanket over them both.  They don’t need to say anything, there is an unspoken understanding between them that needs no words.

 

It doesn’t take long for Bucky notice the pretty dame that seems to be everywhere in the Tower.  No matter where he goes, she’s always there.  She’s helping Foster in the lab’s, dragging Stark to his bed on the regular and cooking for everyone four out of seven nights.  She brings coffee to security guards, picks up dry cleaning for Potts and stops to talk to everyone she meets. She asks about them, their family, checks in with those having a hard time, displaying the sort of thoughtful kindness he didn’t think existed any more. 

She has a smile and kind word for everyone, even him.  Somehow, he knows it’s her that’s got his favourite meal on the menu once a week, when the blueberry muffins and the baklava start appearing in the conference room before each meeting, he knows that’s down to her too.  He wonders how she found out what he likes and then realises that people tell her everything, even things they don’t know she’s looking for.  She draws things out of people, whether on purpose or just as an automatic response to her comfortable charm, he’s not sure, but it makes him warm inside to know she wants to do something for him too, even if he doesn’t think he deserves it.    

He doesn’t know what to make of her or even how to talk to her.  She takes his breath away and he hates himself for wanting something he can’t have.  There’s a light in her that draws him in like a moth to a flame.  He knows she watches him, feels his heart stutter every time she gives him that soft smile.  But he’s wrong and broken inside, he has nothing to offer, she’d never want a guy like him.  He keeps his distance from her even when everything inside him is telling him to move closer.  So he keeps looking and wishes, wishes he could be a man that was worthy of her. 

 

When she drops down on the couch beside him and snuggles right into him on movie night he freezes.  He has no idea what to think, how to respond.  She smells like lilac and apples, her soft curves press into him and mould to his body.  When she throws her leg over his thigh and tentatively wraps her arm around his middle he thinks he might die on the spot, she feels so good against him.  The feel of her warm body tucked into his side, it’s more perfect than he could have imagined.  In that moment he thows caution to the wind and gives in to what he really wants.  He wraps his arm around her and hold her close to him.  Her arms tightens over his waist and she buries her nose in his chest, breathing him in.  He doesn’t move for the next two hours, frightened that if he does he’ll wake up and this will all have been a dream.  The warmth of her helps him relax and for the first time he can remember he lets his guard down.  She sighs as his muscles finally go pliant under her and if he buries his nose in her hair for a few minutes and takes in her scent she says nothing about it, only rubs her cheek against his chest comfortingly in response. 

Everything changes after that.  He can’t stay away from her now.  With every smile, each brush of their hands, with every hug and sweet word she draws him in closer.  He starts seeking her out, just to listen to her talk, he’d forgotten how to smile, but she reminds him. He had forgotten how to talk, to tell a story, but she brings it out of him with her sweetness and her patience.  She makes him want to live again, really live, not just exist in this half life he’d been living since Hydra. 

She’s taken all the first steps, she’s done the work to get them where they are, it’s time he meets her half way.  He brings her coffee and the fleece blanket that she favours over the others, it’s a garish pink with purple tulips.  He sits beside her on the couch and lifts his arm in invitation.  She grins at him and he feels an answering smirk pulling the usual thin line of his lips crooked.  It’s one of the things he appreciates about her most.  She doesn’t need words like other people do, she just needs actions.  She curls into his side and he pulls her closer after laying the blanket over them, their limbs tangled together, not an inch of space between their bodies.  She brings him peace.  He’ll hold onto her for as long as she lets him.

 

**It Does not Envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.**

They both have busy impractical lives.  He can be gone for days or weeks on mission and then come back and still not have time to find her and catch up.  Sometimes he’s so lost in his own head he can’t face seeing anyone, not even her.  She doesn’t mind, she’s just grateful he comes home. 

Jane is Darcy’s life constant, she’s been stuck to her for the better part of a decade.  Bucky get’s it, he doesn’t mind that Darcy can be awake and in the labs for day’s and night’s on end keeping Jane somewhat sane and alive.  He admires her loyalty, it’s frightening in its intensity and unwavering even in the light of argument and disagreement.  He understands when all she can do is flop on the couch and bury her head in his lap and sleep.

It’s still unspoken, this seemingly fragile creation they are building, but it strengthens over time.

There is understanding in their actions, in the way they drift together just the same, even after days or weeks apart, happy to find each other again, continuing from where they left off. 

Darcy knows she’s going to miss his birthday, Jane has a conference in Sweden that has been booked for months.  Darcy tracks him down before they leave, gift bag in hand and drags him off to a conference room to give him his present.  It’s a beautiful dark blue leather-bound journal, she knows he still likes to write, not just as part of therapy, but because even before the war and Hydra, he had kept his truth and ideas in notebooks. 

When he kisses her, she knows it was the right gift, the best gift.  The kiss is sweet and slow, he almost seems unsure as he draws away from her, his expression questioning if he’s read it all wrong.  She smiles softly into his eyes and rises up on her toes to kiss him back.  This kiss although no less sweet or slow is an answer to his.  Yes, it seems to say.  Yes, I’m yours.  Yes, I love you.  Yes, we are us. 

He holds her like spun glass in his arms, gentle and careful, bodies pressed together, her soft curves moulding to the hard planes of him.  This is where she belongs, she thinks contentedly.  He is her home and she is his. 

They don’t need to shout it from the roof tops, it’s no secret either, their relationship simply is.  No one comments and they don’t bring it up.  It’s simply become a fact, a truth that exists in the spaces between heart beats.  Tony and Natasha share a bottle of vodka and toast to their happiness.  They’ve watched the small romance unfold with baited breath, neither of them willing to risk upsetting the delicate balance between the two new lovers.

 

**It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.**

 

The first time they fight it’s because she approaches him while he’s gone from his own mind, the Winter Soldier taking up residence and running the show. 

Darcy knows it’s dangerous, knows there is no guarantee that he will recognise her like this, but she has faith, she believes in him.  He might be triggered, but there is no programming left in his head, no mission has been given to him, so she goes to him.  She stands in his line of sight and raises her hands to show she’s unarmed and slowly approaches him. 

His eyes are not empty as others might say, instead they are filled with haunted pain and desolation.  She doesn’t touch him, she just talks.  She talks for three hours while the floor if completely cleared of personnel.  She talks until she grows hoarse and then she hums under her breath maintaining the illusion of noise. The other Avengers aren’t home, they are all gone on various trips and missions.  Eventually he swims back to the surface to find himself seated in the corridor, Darcy beside him holding his hand.

She knew he would be angry with her, knew it would be because he was terrified of hurting her.  He would never forgive himself if he did, but she could never forgive herself if he got hurt while she could help. 

He raises his voice and says things she knows he doesn’t really mean, she waits till he’s finished before tearing a strip off him, invalidates most of his arguments and warns him never to speak to her like that again. 

They stalk off in different directions and neither speak to the other for a week.  By some unspoken agreement they keep it to themselves, in public they carry on as usual, but in the privacy of their apartment things are tense and uneasy. 

He sleeps on the couch and she paints on a smile, pretending everything is fine.  It’s not fine, it’s far from fine but this is their mess, their problem to solve.  Having others poke their well-meaning noses in will only make matter worse.  They both blurt out apologies at the same time and then cling to each other.  She had frightened him with her reckless endangerment of herself.  He had terrified her with his casual dismissal of his wellbeing.  She never wants to lose him, not when she can help him.  He doesn’t want to lose her, especially not because of something he does that puts her in danger. 

She bakes him baklava and he brings her flowers and book tokens.  They forgive each other, talk about what happened, make agreements on what to do if it happens again and put it behind them. 

No one is any the wiser to what happened when they return to the Tower.  It’s no one else’s business but theirs.  But they made it through that first hurdle.  They can make this work.  Both feel they know better the others limits.  They check in with each other more, take the time to talk things out.  From the outside the others know something has changed between them.  Where before they were two, together facing the world, now they are one.

 

 

**Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.**

 

There is shift between them, it’s hard to put a finger on what it is, but there is a permanence building between them that wasn’t there before.  He understands her better now and she knows she sees him more clearly. 

When they talk now, they share more about themselves.  Honesty, integrity, empathy. 

He tells her of what he did when Hydra had him in their hands, of how he felt, he tells her too of the things that haunt him the most, things he did during the war.  That those actions somehow feel worse, the only thing controlling him then was duty to his country.  Darcy holds him as he breaks in her arms.  The ugly truth of his life draws her closer instead of pushing her away and he begins to believe that they can work.  That finally he had something that can’t be taken away from him. 

In return she tells him about her own past, the foster families she lived with who hurt her more than helped her.  She tells him why she carries her taser, why she wears layers of tops and jumpers and covers herself from neck to toe.  Shows him the scars on the inside and tells him about the boys who cornered her and raped her in her freshman year of college.  He holds her and kisses her hair when she cries and tells her she is beautiful and bright and good.  His heart breaks for her, that someone so inherently good has endured so much pain and hidden it so completely astounds him.  He marvels at her strength.  But she doesn’t have to carry the burden of her past alone any more.  He makes her feel safe in a way she’s never experienced in her life, in a way she didn’t know existed. 

They both have scars, they both have suffered.  Darcy wonders if it perhaps like calls to like.  When he is with her she feels stronger, they are better together than apart. 

 

 

**It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.**

 

She doesn’t know she’s in danger until she hits the ground, the dull punch of pain in her side and the blood running down her leg, pooling on the ground around her knees.  Her ears are ringing and the thump of her own heart deafens her.  Each breath feels like a struggle and she stares disbelieving as her hand comes away from her side, coated in dark red blood.  She hears more than see’s the fight that goes on around her, his voice calling her name in between the sounds of gunfire and the cries of the men she knows are dying at his hands. 

They had just been going out to get coffee.  How had it turned into Gunfight at the O.K. Corral?  Her head swims and she’s suddenly on her side, cheek pressed into the cold concrete.  Each breath becomes a struggle, had she collapsed a lung?  The last sight she has of him is as he tries to reach her.  There are five men surrounding him, stun batons tasing him till all he can do is crawl towards her.  Her hand reaches towards him, their eyes meet, anguish reflected in their blue gazes.  The last thing she hears as her vision goes is her name on his lips, desperate and begging.  Oblivion takes her and draws her under. 

_Please god, where ever you are please save him, please don’t let them have him again. Please. Hail Mary, full of grace….  Our father…deliver him from evil._

When she wakes it’s to the sound of a beeping monitor and the smell of antiseptic.  She blinks grittily through the accumulated sand in her eyes and waits for the world to resolve itself into some sort of order.  The small gasp of her name from the side tells her it’s Jane who holds her cold hand in hers.

“Darcy, oh good lord, you nearly died, how are you feeling?”  Jane presses a button by her bedside and before she can respond to Jane a doctor is bustling into her hospital room.  Huh, she looks familiar.

“Hello Miss Lewis, my name is Helen Cho, do you remember me?”  the pretty woman asks her.

“Of course, you were at the Gala last month, I think I remember emailing you after about the funding for the cradle tech you and Tony are working on.”  Helen smiles.

“That’s right.  Okay, so I have a few questions and then we’ll get a quick check on the progress of your injuries.”  Darcy just nods, trying to will the pain in her head away.

“Do you know what day it is?”

“It’s Tuesday, right?  We went to get coffee, Tuesday the 10th.”  Helen nods and moves on.

“Do you remember what happened.”  Darcy frowns, she remembers leaving the tower.  Remembers him tucking her into his side like an over protective dork, but she hadn’t complained, it was cold and she loved it when he put his arm around her like she needed to be shielded from the world.  She never felt more safe than when he held her.

They had gotten to the coffee shop, but then…  her hand flies to her side, remembering the dull impact in her side, remembers the blood and the deafening shriek of gunfire, remembers his voice calling her name.

“Bucky, where is he, is he here?  What happened to him?”  Jane looks pale and drawn, her expression apologetic and sad.

“No”  Darcy denies, no he can’t be gone, he just can’t be, not when she’s here and safe…

“Where is he?”  she asks again.

“I’m sorry Darcy, we don’t know.  The footage shows you being attacked, it shows them trying to subdue Barnes.  He stopped them from being able to put you in the van with him when they took him, he killed a man with his bare hands who was going to put a bullet through your head before they got him in the van, he bought enough time for Tony to get there.  The last thing we know that happened was his shouting for Tony to leave him, to save you.”

“We need to find him.”

“They’re working on it Darcy, they’re all working on it, night and day. You’ve been asleep since Tuesday, it’s Friday now.”

“He’s been missing for three days?  Jane…”  Jane’s eyes fill with sympathy at the horror filled understanding in Darcy’s voice.

“We’ll find him Darcy.”

“But he won’t know me anymore, will he?  They’ll have wiped him again…”

“I know I don’t pay attention Darcy, but this thing with you and Barnes…  no one knew what to make of it at first, you get that, right?  I mean, he’s so dark and quiet and … well you know what I mean.  But ever since the two of you got together… he’s changed, Darcy, because of you.  If there is anything in the world that man will remember, it’s you.  He adores you Darcy.  You have to believe that.  Something as strong as what you have with him can survive anything.  Even if he never remembers, if he comes back and the two of you have start over again, it won’t matter, because there is a part of him that will remember loving you, deep down he’ll know you even when he doesn’t.”

Darcy breaks down in tears and gratefully accepts Janes hug.  She clings to her friend and cries.

 

 

The pain flowing through his body is crippling, he can barley stand, but he still tries.  Tries as hard as he can to reach her.  The sight of her hitting the sidewalk, the bloom of blood through her white wool coat fills him with a rage and fear he has never felt before.  He feels the human in him slip away as the soldier steps forward, carnage spreading in his wake. 

He kills quickly and without remorse.  They manage to get him on his knees but he surges up again as she keels over, her head smacking the concrete with a dull thud.  There’s five on them around him with the stun weapons.  He grabs the baton in his hand and thrusts it back on his attacker, turning the tables and the man goes down for good, he cracks it across another’s throat, feels the trachea collapse, the third he brings the heel of his hand up as he breaks his nose with the baton and forces the septum into the brain, the man collapses like a puppet with the strings cut.  The fourth and fifth are harder, they know they’re fighting for their lives.  The fifth man makes the mistake of drawing a gun.  It takes the soldier .76 seconds to disarm him and take the weapon for his own.  It’s a semi automatic, the heft suggests the number of rounds left to be low.  He drops four and five with a head shot each and them runs towards Darcy.  A van pulls up beside her and six men jump out, reaching to pick her up, the gun swings up and fires four more times, each bullet dropping a man as he goes.  He’s aware that the pool of blood spreading from Darcy indicates a severe bleed, the bullet that ripped through her has hit an artery, she’s bleeding out.  She has minutes to live without medical aid.  He’s not quick enough, the fifth man of the new group shoots him three times, centre mass, he feels his lung struggle under the pressure.  Still he moves forward, he is not running from them, not if it means leaving her behind.  One of the men hits him with a tranquilizer, the world tilts.  His hearing is muffled but he can still make out their voices as they argue.  The man with the gun brings it to bare on his girl, he’s going to shoot her in the head, too much hassle to get them both in the van and no time.  He lunges forwards and wraps his hands around the guys head and twists, breaking his neck.  The last man standing grabs him and pushes him towards the open van, he feels arms reach out to take him, he can only let them as he feels his strength slip away.  Then he sees Stark flying in and he shouts, knowing the man will hear him

“Stark. Help Darcy, don’t you dare let her die.” 

He sees Iron Man pause and for a second thinks the man will ignore him, instead he goes limp with relief as the billionaire lands and scoops his girl up, flying off with her.  She’ll be okay, she has to be, he has to believe it.  Now he just has to survive to go back to her.  He can do this.  Its not the first time they’ve had him.  His friends will find him, he knows it, Darcy will find him, he has faith.  She won’t give up on him.  The butt of a rifle comes down hard on his temple and he loses consciousness.

 

 

**Love never fails. . . And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.**

 

Darcy gets back on her feet quicker than she should.  There are definite perks to being Avengers adjacent.  Dr Cho had used the cradle to heal the damage caused by the bullet once the surgeon had taken care of the internal bleeding.  It was still a little tender and her side felt odd to the touch at first but she healed, she got stronger. 

Bucky had been gone for two weeks and she was back in the labs helping Jane and generally doing her best to keep the other geniuses in line.  It wasn’t easy.  Every time she saw Tony he looked at her like she’d kicked his puppy.  She knew he felt guilty for letting them take Bucky, but she didn’t blame him.  Eventually she has enough of all the sad looks and the silent lab and goes to talk to him.

“It wasn’t your fault.  No one knew they were going to make that sort of move in such a public place.  There was nothing else you could have done.”  She tells him.

“I should have thought of something.”  He mutters angrily, swearing as the wiring in his hands sparks.  Darcy feels her own anger growing.  This is not helping anyone.

“Is it my fault then?  For getting shot?  If I hadn’t been hurt you would have saved him.”

Tony’s eyes fly up to meet hers, he sees her blue eyes, wide with unshed tears.

“What?  No, of course it’s not your fault.  Fuck, Double-D, this is on us, we messed up, we should have….  There should have been better protocols in place.  We let out guards down.”

Darcy shakes her head, her mouth drawing a tight line before she takes and breath and speaks again.

“No.  We all live in this bubble, we’re always going to be looking over our shoulders, but that’s not living.  It’s just existing.  We have to be able to be normal sometimes.  That’s all we were doing.  Going for a coffee.  We did everything right.  We didn’t go every week, we never went to the same place twice, we didn’t walk the same path to or from the Tower.  The only way to stop this would have been never leaving at all.  And even then, if we did?  Don’t you think they would just attack harder? Strike us here?  There is no scenario where we win without giving up what makes life worth living.”

He takes her clenched fists in his hands and gently unfolds them.  He doesn’t look at her at first but she can tell he has something he needs to say.  She lets him unfurl her fingers and relaxes as he cradles them in his hands.  They’re not large hands, but his fingers are long and tapered and covered in callouses.

“Here’s the thing kid.  We, all of us, signed up for this one way or another.  We knew what we were walking into.  You can still get out, get away from this.  You’re not an assassin or a super soldier.  You are everything we are trying to protect in this world.  You can still walk away.”  She searches his face and then lifts her chin up.

“No, I can’t.  I love him.  I love all of you.”  She smiles regretfully. “I knew what the risks were and I would do it again, I really would, because what you do?  It’s important and you need us.  Me and Pepper and Happy and Sam and Jane.  You need us, just as much as we need you.  We believe in you, and I have to trust that that means something.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.”

Darcy hugs him hard.

“Thank you, for saving me.  He would never have been able to live with it if I’d died because of him.  That’s the way he would have looked it at.  You did the right thing and we are going to get him back.”

“It’s been a month Darcy…  I don’t know if…  I can’t make any promises Short-Stack.”

“You don’t need to.  I have faith.  I believe in him.  And in you and Steve and the others.  You’ll find him.”

She leaves the lab feeling better, more optimistic.  She thinks it helped Tony too, the music now blaring from the speakers as she rounded the corridor gives her hope.

 

**But the greatest of these is love.**

When the call comes in to the Tower that Steve and Tony have found him Darcy doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but maybe both is okay too.

When they bring him in, she’s waiting on the roof, arms clutching her middle, holding herself together by the barest thread, it’s been three months.

Tony’s the first out, he makes a bee line for her and tries to herd her back indoors.

“You don’t want to see him like this Shortcake, it’s not pretty.”  He’s blocking her view as she tries to see round him.

“I don’t care, it doesn’t matter, he needs me.”  Tony grasps her elbows and holds her still, forcing her to look at him and listen.  His voice is so serious and full of sympathy it makes her sick.

“He’s not gonna know you Sweetheart.”  She bites her lip hard and swallows.

“It doesn’t matter.  I know him, I just….  Tony, I need to see he’s real, that he’s here, please.”  She begs, her voice breaking on his name.  He relents and shifts to the side.  Steve and Bruce make their way down the ramp, a gurney between them.  Bucky lies on it, tied down and restrained, he twists futilely snarling incoherently whenever Steve leans in too close. 

Darcy covers her mouth with her hand and chokes back a sob, it’s Tony that catches her when she falters, her legs seeming to loose all feeling.  She brushes him off and doggedly follows after Bucky, Tony hovering at her heels.  She won’t leave him, she can’t.  She’ll stay by his side as long as it takes, no matter what.

Darcy doesn’t falter.  She saw him when no one else did.  She chose him and he chose her.  For weeks he doesn’t recognise anyone, does nothing but growl and scream like an animal.  There is no logic behind his eyes, just instinct and pain.  Darcy stays by his side.  She reads to him when he’s quiet.  Tries to get him to eat so he doesn’t have to be fed on a drip.  There are scars at his temples where they used the machines to send high voltages of electricity through his brain. 

Dr Cho says he’s healing, but it’s taking time.  There is scar tissue built up in his brain.  They have to operate, cut out the worst of it in the hope he will heal.  She can’t promise Darcy or Steve that Bucky will ever remember either of them or anything from his life before.

With each surgery he becomes a little calmer, a little more quiet.  Then the last surgery, something goes wrong.  They’re not sure what happened but when they try to wake him he they find he’s slipped into a coma.

If there were tears left, she would have cried them, but she’s so numb all she can do is sit there, at his bedside, trying not to count each breath he takes, wondering if it will be his last.

Darcy prays.  She prays like she hasn’t since she was child, to every god she can name and some she can’t. 

When he wakes up, he’s wary, careful, but he’s finally talking.  Darcy is with Jane when it happens, the other woman having dragged her out to shower and change and eat.  When she goes back, she hears his voice.  She stops outside the door, listening.

“Where am I?”  he asks the doctor.  “Why am I in restraints?”

“What’s the last thing you remember Sergeant Barnes?” 

The silence leaves her tummy turning wildly as she waits.

“I…  We went for coffee.  There was an ambush.”  She can hear the panic ramping up in his voice before the sound of the reinforced cuffs break with a shriek.

“Where is she?”  the doctor just whimpers.

“She’s gone...”  The doctor manages to get out, but never completes her shaky sentence, the wail of grief and pain that follows drives her from the room in a panic.

Darcy backs away from the door, her breath coming up short as her heartbeat doubles as the doctor barrels out of the room.  All Darcy can do is stand there shaking as she sees him on his knees, pounding his fist into the floor over and over as he cries and shouts.

“Bucky….  Bucky.”  She calls to him, softly then louder, trying to force the sound out of her tightening throat.  She wobbles as she makes her way to him, she can hardly see him through her tears, but she stops when he looks up, disbelief plain across his face.

“I’m dead, I’m finally dead and I don’t care.”  He says as she falls into his arms.  He clutches her close, both of them crying, hands clasping and touching each other as though neither can believe the other is real.

“You’re not dead, we’re not dead, I just went to get changed, get something to eat.  I’m really here.”   She whispers to him through her sobs. 

“Darcy, fuck, Doll, I thought you were dead, there was so much blood.”  He holds her face in his hands and kisses her head before resting his forehead on hers.

“I got better.  I’m fine. Tony got me back here safe.”

“How long?”  he finally asks when they mange to catch a breath.

“Four months, three where you were missing.  A month here in medical.”

“I’m sorry.”  He whispers into her hair as they continue to cling to each other.

“I love you.” She tells him, happy tears dropping onto his chest as she clutches him closer.

“I love you more.”  She snorts into his shoulder at his absolute conviction.

“Not possible.”  She tells him as she kisses him hard on the mouth, demanding he believe her.

“Marry me.”  Its more a demand than a question and she feels the world slowing down around her.  What does one say to that other than yes? She nods, unable to speak a word never mind a sentence. 

 

Epilogue.

 _“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate then when I fall asleep your eyes close.”_  
– Pablo Neruda, _100 Love Sonnets_

 

They’re not perfect, no couple is, but there is a simplicity to their love that inspires.

The wedding is quite and quick, neither wanting to wait a moment more.  Their friends rally round them and make it happen without fuss.

Steve does his part as best man with sincerity and no small amount of teasing. 

Jane keeps Darcy from having a melt down the hour before she’s meant to walk down the aisle. 

Pepper organises the whole thing and brings Darcy beautiful sapphire hair pins to hold up her curls.

Tony walks her down the aisle, proud as punch at getting to play his part.

The speeches they insist on giving leave both Bucky and Darcy moved and humbled and by turns overwhelmed with laughter.

There are rings on their fingers.  The staff in the Tower take to calling her Mrs Barnes as it never fails to make her blush and grin.  She loves to refer to him as her husband, he introduces her to people as his wife.  But being married hasn’t changed them.  It was falling in love that did, it was finding each other and learning how to communicate, compromise and understand what the other needed most.  It was in all the tiny allowances they made for the other, year on year, even when they disagreed or fought.  It was dirty dishes and missed dinner dates, it was broken promises and white lies.  It was chicken soup and 3am call outs, nightmares and breakfast in bed.  It was in an accumulation of every day mundanities.  

 

They didn’t live happily ever after.  There were still many hurdles and problems along the way.  The most important thing though, was that through it all they had each other.  It wasn’t an easy journey, there were times they both thought they wouldn’t make it.  But every time they stumbled they found their way back again.  Their love was built on a foundation of persistent devotion and respect, of mutual stubbornness and faith.  He never forgot that she spent months waiting for him to come home, never giving up on him.  She never forgets that he was willing to go back to the worst hell he’d known, just to keep her safe. 

Their love story becomes a family favourite.  Told over again to their children and grand children passed down over years and decades.

 

In a cemetery on Old Earth there is a tombstone that people visit.  It’s in the Memorial of Heroes, one of the earliest tombs to be dedicated.  People visit from hundreds of worlds to visit the museum and memorial, to learn of the Avengers, of the Earths Mightiest Heroes and their stories.  The story of Bucky Barnes and Darcy Lewis is a favourite, if only because it is so well documented.  Every year hundreds of flowers are laid at their tomb.  The inscription is a popular old earth passage from a religious book.  Some think it overly romantic and unrealistic, but to those few left who once knew them, it’s nothing more than the truth.

 

**_Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. . . And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. ~  Corinthians 13:4-13  
_ **

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**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Comments? Criticisms? Please let me know below!


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